Deborah Swiss

Elizabeth Fry is an unlikely yet important hero in the history behind Australia Day. The Quaker reformer, along with her army of volunteers, helped nearly 12,000 of the 25,000 convict women who were transported to Australia beginning in 1788 with the arrival of the First Fleet.

One in five Australians has convict ancestry, and many of their ancestors survived thanks to Fry's help.

Two hundred years ago this month, Fry dared to enter Newgate jail, known then as London's “prototype of hell". It was the start of 30 years of visionary reforms by one of history's most effective and hands-on social activists.

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Fry is more relevant today than ever: the first woman to testify before Parliament, a persuasive abolitionist and humanitarian lobbyist before world leaders, a pioneer in forging new roles for women.

Yet, in an effort to go “back to basics,” Mr Gove intends to axe this ground-breaking crusader from the national school curriculum. A recently leaked government report proposes the elimination of significant social history to allow more emphasis on people such as Winston Churchill, Oliver Cromwell and Lord Nelson.

What is more fundamental to history than highlighting heroes who shift a society's conscience? And why should an American care about a 19th-century British woman? I learnt about Fry during the six years I spent researching my last book. My introduction began when I asked the question: from 1788-1868, did anyone in the world care about the 25,000 lower-class women who were targeted as “tamers and breeders”, transported in chains to Australia, and deemed free labour for Britain's imperial expansion? The answer is a definitive “yes”, and her name is Elizabeth Fry.

Although her image appears on the British £5 note, I had never heard of Fry until I studied Australia's convict women. Called “the angel of the prisons”, Fry helped orphans and other “disposable” citizens. Among them were Agnes McMillan and Janet Houston who had pilfered small items because they were starving.

As was true for many girls of the time, the slums offered meagre opportunities for work and little hope of survival other than by prostitution. As teenagers, Agnes and Janet awaited transport to Van Diemen's Land inside a communal Newgate cell with up to 300 others. Amid the muck and filth, Fry extended dignity by teaching the women a skill and opening a schoolroom for children imprisoned with their mothers. She dared to break convention by viewing Newgate's chattel as human beings and fanning the hope of a new life once they had served their sentences and were freed in Australia.

Fry's influence crossed the globe as she worked tenaciously to improve conditions for the convict lasses aboard the transport ships and in Australia. She arranged for matrons to supervise female prisoners in place of the all-male ships' crew, thereby reducing the abuse women suffered. Ahead of her times, Fry believed that needless cruelty towards the downtrodden only hastened their descent into becoming hardened human beings and repeat offenders.

This Quaker minister and mother of 11 demonstrated that one fearless person could monumentally change how a society responded to its problems.

A distant cousin of Florence Nightingale, Fry trudged through London's slums to vaccinate the poor against smallpox. She set up clothing drives, soup kitchens and homeless shelters across her city. Understanding that poverty is neither a choice nor a crime, she worked tirelessly to educate women in low-paid jobs, workhouses, halfway houses and prisons. Fearless and determined, she argued for better treatment of the mentally ill. She spoke for those who had no voice and persuaded Queen Victoria to contribute to her causes, most of which were considered radical for the 19th century.

Fry is a natural for lessons that include Queen Victoria because the older Fry became a mentor to the young queen. Students beginning to plot their moral compass – and the world they want to live in – can certainly benefit from critical thinking about what ignites social change and what it takes to be a pioneer in any field. An even more important lesson is that heroes come in all shapes, sizes and colours.

I want my children to live in a world where a collective social conscience summons the courage to address the reasons so many human beings are still struggling. Sometimes it's hard to know where to begin. Sometimes it takes a wake-up call to remind us of the basic truth that one person can make a difference.

For Fry, it started on January 16, 1813 when she confronted the injustice of children left abandoned and hungry, and began to rouse her nation from its failings.

She was practical, she was vocal, and she was a leader who admitted when she was wrong. Like a kindly godmother, Fry helped the convict maids survive, the women who would be among the founding mothers of modern Australia.

She became a distinguished public figure for all the right reasons and students everywhere deserve to know about Elizabeth Fry.

Deborah Swiss is a US historian and author of The Tin Ticket: The Heroic Journey of Australia's Convict Women.

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